Tagged 'inspiration'

The struggle between deadlines and creative started the day marketing and advertising was conceived. Unfortunately one side seems to always win. So it's how we handle these unavoidable pressures that differentiates the great from the weak. The truly great creatives have figured out a way to turn that tight deadline into a positive situation--they revel in it.
How? First let's talk about those dreamy, mythical deadlines that are weeks or even months away. Besides the natural tendency to procrastinate, the tendency to over analyze becomes the greater issue. The more time you have, the more you second guess what you're doing or the less willing you are to commit to a direction until you feel it is the ultimate solution. Or something could be great at first, but because you have all the time in the world you don't know when to say when. You keep building up and tearing down until you're left with something average or safe, not realizing that brilliance was staring you in the face days ago.
When you have a tight deadline, you're forced to immediately focus on the ask and quickly come up with an efficient game plan. Once the essence of the brief is understood,... Read more

How Science Started to Dominate Advertising
In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge pronounced a benediction on the business of advertising:
"Advertising ministers to the spiritual side of trade. It is a great power that has been intrusted to your keeping which charges you with the high responsibility of inspiring and ennobling the commercial world. It is all part of the greater work of regeneration and redemption of mankind."
Between 1926 and today, we proceeded dealing with advertising as if it was more science than art. Reach and frequency were introduced, new metrics like GRP and TRP started to dominate the language of the business and now we measure our reach in terms of impressions. Coolidge's idea of inspiration and spiritual redemption through advertising was replaced by spreadsheets, perspiration and a dominance of left-brain thinking.
Is Advertising Art Or Science?
If advertising is a matter of data and science, why do we remember an Apple commercial from 1984 that ran once? And why do I get so annoyed when I see the same, mediocre ad over and over again, behaviorally targeting the hell out of me and perfectly aligned with reach and frequency formulas? I would argue, there's an advertising world outside of science. It's called creative... Read more

As you catch up on all the emails you missed over the holidays and wonder where to start on your massive list of "to-dos," I'm going to recommend you take a moment for a quick read. Today's post is really simple. It's not another "XYZs of the DECADE!" or "The Most Important Things of 2010" type post, of which I'm sure you're seeing plenty. [Note: This is a re-post from my "regular" blog, Dose of Digital, but thought it was worth sharing here as well.]
Instead, I wanted to start you off with some things that are sure to recharge your creative thinking. I plan to show you things that might amuse, inspire, upset, annoy, confuse, encourage, frustrate, and all of these at once. While I typically write about healthcare related topics, this post is for every marketer out there. There are quite a few healthcare examples included (I can't help it), but the vast majority have nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare.
What you aren't going to get here is a list of things to do. I'm not going to show you a bunch of ideas to copy. You're going to have to work a bit to figure out the... Read more